


The Door at the Edge of the World

by SilverPrince



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverPrince/pseuds/SilverPrince
Summary: 13 year old Jeremie Belpois is a computer science and engineering prodigy who, desperate to stave off the specter of boredom, stumbles upon a secret so massive that it threatens to turn not only his life but all of space-time upside down. And he finds it in the basement of his school, with only a group of fellow misfit students to count on. Along with it, he finds a whole new world beyond his wildest imagination, an evil beyond comprehension, and friendship like he never knew he could ever have. You know this story, and at the same time, you don't. A retelling of the not-famed-enough French animated television show Code Lyoko, rebuilt from the ground up.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. The Door at the Edge of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it's me, SilverPrince. "Hey, aren't you the guy who's supposed to be working on-" Shhh. We are not acknowledging the elephant in the room. This idea came to me in a dream (literally, that's exactly what happened) and I had to give it some life. Maybe nothing will happen with this. Maybe it will be the greatest thing I ever do. Maybe it'll just be okay. Will I ever finish the other things I'm supposed to finish? Will I ever think of ideas for anything other than this TV show that is approaching 20 years old? I don't know the answers to any of these. But I do know that I am on the record stating I wish Code Lyoko had done more with its premise, and I suppose now that I am quarantined and have very little else to do, I may as well put my money where my mouth is.
> 
> Thanks for being here. Let's get started.

Jeremie Belpois was certain there was something interesting behind the locked door in the boiler room. Absolutely _certain_.

If you had asked him a year ago, Jeremie would have told you that he wasn’t one to break the rules. He would probably still say the same today, but he might feel a little guilty about it. Strictly speaking, no one had ever _told_ him it was against the rules to go into the boiler room. And it was months ago that he had started taking spare ducts and various supplies from the room; surely if the school cared they would have said something by now, or even just locked the door.

Indeed, the only obstacle Jeremie faced regarding the boiler room was that he had wiped it clean. Well, clean of the things he wanted, anyway. It was still full of junk, but he didn’t need buckets or broken mops. He had been scrounging around for salvageable bits of metal he could use for his robotics experiments, and the boiler room had been his best bet. The garden shed had shown some early promise, but it was mainly full of rakes and shovels, and Jim more regularly patrolled the area. So he would seem to be out of obvious options.

But he _knew_ there was something behind that door.

It was the only door, outside of the teacher’s lounge and science department storage room, that was ever locked in the whole school. And more notably, the door did not appear on any of the school blueprints he had ever been able to find – and the school library had copies of the original designs from when the school was built over a hundred years ago. He had even done some light hacking into municipal websites and found building and renovation permits filed since the 80s or so. Nothing. By all accounts, that door should not exist.

The door haunted him. Or rather, it _taunted_ him. He _had_ to open that door. He just _had_ to. But, skilled engineer and not-too-shabby hacker he might have been, Jeremie Belpois could not pick locks. And the school library certainly didn’t have any books on that. So the door remained locked, and Jeremie remained vexed.

He knew he would be in trouble soon. He had done just about all he cared to do with his current models of robots. He could disassemble them and start over, he supposed, but if given the option he would prefer not to. He liked to maintain all his old creations. They were evidence of his progress. He was already getting that itch he got when he needed a new challenge, something to sink his teeth into. If he didn’t, he would end up going stir-crazy. Jeremie Belpois needed to open the door in the boiler room more than he had ever needed anything in his whole life. He needed it so badly, he was considering something drastic: asking for help.

At the moment, Jeremie sat alone in the corner of the cafeteria, as he always did. It was breakfast, and over his croissant and coffee, Jeremie scanned the room. He knew that at least one person in this school knew how to pick locks. It was a private boarding school, for Christ’s sake. A veritable breeding ground for troublemakers. He just had to find one that would be willing to give him the time of day.

The loudest troublemaker in the room was Elisabeth Delmas, the headmaster’s daughter. She had a natural ability to draw attention to herself, and although it was mainly due to the volume of her voice, she seemed to believe that this meant that she was some sort of celebrity. She was certainly a diva, but the only real followers she seemed to have were a pair of toadies. One of them, Nicolas, was dumb as a box rocks and twice as dense. The other was named Herve, who was about the only person in the school who came close to rivaling Jeremie academically. He was also a sniveling, ugly rat of a boy who regularly ingratiated himself before Elisabeth – Sissi, she preferred – in some apparent hope that she might show even an iota of appreciation toward him. She never did.

Sissi, Nicolas, and Herve sat at a table in the center of the room, as they always did. It was theoretically possible, Jeremie thought, that Sissi might know how to pick a lock. And Nicolas looked like he might have a proclivity to rule breaking. But he highly doubted both possibilities – and even if Herve knew how to pick a lock, Jeremie would never ask him in ten million years. Besides, they would want to know what was behind the door too, and they would probably go blabbing. So they were not an option.

In another corner of the room, alone like Jeremie, was a boy named Stern. His first name was something German, Jeremie couldn’t remember it.

“Ulrich, dear! Good morning!” Sissi crooned and waved in Stern’s direction. Ah, that was it. Ulrich. Ulrich did not wave back.

He was a very quiet person, and he had a certain… gruff quality to him. In fact, Jeremie might even say… stern. But that would be ridiculous. In any case, Jeremie very much got a troublemaker sort of vibe from him, and he knew that he wouldn’t go telling everyone in the school about whatever was on the other side of the door. But the truth was that Jeremie was probably too intimidated to talk to Ulrich about anything, and it was unlikely that he could be persuaded to do anything he didn’t feel like doing. As far as Jeremie knew, the only thing Ulrich liked to do was play football, and jocks and people like Jeremie just didn’t mix very well.

There were a few other people in the room that showed some slight interest. Emmanuel Maillard looked the type, but he and a group of friends were all engaged in happy conversation and Jeremie wasn’t about to put egg on his face by trying to interrupt them. There was a lycéen named Matthias that might have been able to, but he also seemed kind of dense.

Jeremie wasn’t likely to find someone to help him, he decided. He would just have to learn how to do it himself. Perhaps sometime tomorrow he could go into the city and check the public library, it wasn’t like he had much else to do. Yes, that was probably the best option. He finished the last of his coffee and stood up, about to resign himself to his fate, when someone walked into the cafeteria and Jeremie stopped. Yes. This was the one.

He couldn’t remember her name, but he knew her face. She was Japanese, tall, and wore all black all the time, so she cut a very distinctive figure. He hadn’t thought of her before, but the moment he saw her, it clicked. She was the closest anyone at school came to being punk, and she absolutely _exuded_ an aura of resistance to authority. She was also a lycéenne, only a grade above Jeremie as far as he knew, but she seemed very mature for her age. And, like Ulrich Stern, Jeremie had almost never heard her say a word. Not only that, but he was pretty sure she was a day student – meaning there was even less of a chance that she would run her mouth off to other people. She was the one. If any person at this school knew how to pick a lock, it was her.

The only problem was that she looked like she could squash Jeremie like a grape, and the very idea of asking her for anything practically terrified him.

Perhaps later, Jeremie decided. In the meantime, he had class. There was science today, so that would at least be something to distract him for a little while.

Kadic Academy was a relatively well-renowned private boarding school. Containing both a collège and a lycée, it taught students from age 11 all the way to 18. It was on the outer rim of Parisian suburbs, far enough from the city center that there was plenty of green space nearby. In fact, the campus abutted a large public park and forest. Jeremie had picked it himself when he was eleven years old, after having researched schools all across the country. He didn’t care much about what the rich people thought about the school and he didn’t go outside nearly enough to appreciate the park, he had picked it for one reason: the science curriculum here was the most rigorous in the country. It was the only place he could hope to escape what had plagued him in primary school: constant boredom.

Jeremie had always excelled in school. His reading and writing scores were well above average, and his math and science scores were national records. He had designed his first fully-functioning robot, without any programming assistance, at age 9. Only 13, he was already qualified in seven programming languages, and he had won medals from three national science fair and eight regional ones. He had skipped a grade, entering the _cinquième_ year at Kadic a year early, and would have skipped two if they would have allowed it. They had wanted him to be able to “develop socially” or something silly like that. His parents had ordered subscriptions to six academic journals for him, just so he could have something to read that didn’t make him fall asleep. He had, anonymously, served as a white-hat hacker for three universities, and last year had discovered a major security vulnerability in a Ministry of Defense computer program that had earned him a 5,000 euro prize. They had all about fallen over when he had come to collect the check.

The curriculum at Kadic was just enough to prevent him from going insane, but it in order to keep that up, he also needed his extra-curriculars – that was why the door was so vital. If he didn’t have things to cut his teeth on, he would go numb with boredom, and that only spelled trouble. Jeremie became a different person when he was bored. He talked back, he was disrespectful, he ignored curfews, and he did… dangerous things. Taking unwanted scrap metal without permission might have been _technically_ bad, but if he didn’t have that, he was liable to do something like take control of an orbital military satellite. Something like that wouldn’t have earned him a prize, it would have earned him a jail sentence. Or at least, it would have if they had caught him. They never did, though.

Indeed, Jeremie could already feel the boredom setting in. It was like a dull ringing, just at the edge of his perception. If he ignored it for too long, it would fill his brain with the sound of static and turn him practically feral. He had to do something soon. The chalk on the board behind Mrs. Hertz indicated they were about to start a unit on biology. It was Jeremie’s least favorite science. A bad omen.

“Good morning, class,” said Mrs. Hertz. She was something of a shrill woman, with big bushy hair that had once been brown but was now much closer to gray. She wore big, round glasses and a big lab coat and had a big voice – she was big in every way except physical. She wasn’t exactly a pleasant person to be around, but she had been published several times in international scientific journals and Jeremie trusted her to actually know what she was talking about. Her area of expertise was in electrodynamics – she favored classical electrodynamics and Jeremie was more interested in quantum electrodynamics, but he respected her preference. Of course, she was knowledgeable in most other areas as well. Jeremie had picked Kadic largely because of faculty like her, although he had wished he had known ahead of time how strict she was.

“I was told a new student would be joining us today, but I don’t see that he’s arrived yet, and it’s a minute past the hour, so we’ll get started.” She looked at her watch and tutted. Whoever this new student was, he had clearly already made a poor impression.

Odd that a new student would be joining them now, they were already more than a month into the new school year – and, of all days, on a Saturday, when there was only half a day of classes anyway. Mrs. Hertz started the day as she did every day, by writing the date on the board in her old-fashioned, looping cursive: Saturday, October 9th , 2004.

“Do you know,” she said, still facing the board, “I’ve just realized that it’s been 10 years this year that I’ve taught here. How time fl-”

A knock at the door interrupted Mrs. Hertz before she could go any more dangerously close to getting sentimental. She turned, and the door opened to reveal Mr. Delmas, the headmaster of the school. “Good morning, Mrs. Hertz. Good morning, students.” He nodded at both of them in turn. Mr. Delmas was something of a larger man, fashionable, distinguished in appearance with gray hair and beard, and he was also somewhat stuffy. He was the perfect leader for the school. “I have a new student for you, and I wanted to escort him personally so I could tell you that it was my own error that he was late.” Mr. Delmas was smirking just slightly. He knew that Mrs. Hertz was, as some of the less respectful students might say, a “hard-ass.”

He stepped to the side and motioned for someone behind him to enter the classroom. The person who entered was… just about the polar opposite of Mr. Delmas. Where Mr. Delmas was tall and a little big around, the new student was short and skinnier than anyone Jeremie had ever seen. Where Mr. Delmas wore handsome but conservative earth-toned business-wear, this new student was wearing… well, just absolutely out-of-this world clothing. Two-toned purple pants… were they bell-bottoms? Some sort of long-sleeved purple crop top with a pinkish undershirt beneath… and slicked-back blonde hair with a purple streak down the middle. Jeremie had never seen anyone dress like this in any context, ever. Not even on television. The new kid looked like an alien trying to blend in on Earth but failing miserably. He could hardly believe Jean-Pierre Delmas even let this person enter the school grounds.

“Everyone, this is Odd Della Robbia. I’ll let him introduce himself, but where is Ulrich Stern? Ah, there you are.” Mr. Delmas scanned the room and found Ulrich, sitting a few rows behind and to the right of Jeremie, who always picked the front middle seat in the classroom. “Odd, the gentleman in green there is Ulrich Stern, he’ll be your roommate.”

Jeremie turned to look at Ulrich, who did not seem to be trying to hide his disappointment. He weakly waved at… it had sounded like Mr. Delmas had said this boy’s name was _Odd_.

“Hi, I’m Odd,” said the new student. Jeremie had heard it several times consistently now. His name was really, truly Odd. “I’m from the United States.” That would explain the weirdness, Jeremie decided. “It’s great to be here! He made a hand gesture where he stuck his thumb and pinky finger out and waved his hand before making a beeline to the unfortunately empty seat next to Ulrich.

“Welcome, Odd,” said Mrs. Hertz. “Thank you, Mr. Delmas.” She nodded at him, and then immediately turned back to the class. “Please open your textbooks to page 67. Heidi, I would like you to read the opening paragraph out loud.”

Jeremie wondered for a moment, barely listening to Heidi, if this Odd Della Robbia knew how to pick a lock. But for the first time he could remember, Jeremie… had no idea what to think. Odd Della Robbia was completely incomprehensible.


	2. They Don't Let You Have Televisions

“And the waiter says, I don’t have frog legs, that’s just the way I walk!” Odd finished the awful joke just as he pushed open the door outside and burst into some kind of terrible, nasal laughter. It made Ulrich’s hair stand on edge. “Do you get it?”

“No,” said Ulrich, as flatly as he could muster. “But what I _am_ beginning to get is that you are determined _not_ to give me a break.” He had known Odd Della Robbia for all of an hour and a half, and already he would give anything – _anything_ – to never have to see him again.

“We’re gonna have to get to know each other,” Odd said, sounding almost serious. “And you’ll see! By the end of the day, you won’t be able to do without me!” And the seriousness was gone. 

_Please, God,_ Ulrich thought.  _A lightning bolt… a plague of locusts… something, anything, to get me away from this boy._ “Look. You want to get to know me? Okay, let me tell you one thing about me: I like to  _be quiet._ If you want to be indispensable to me, you gotta be  _quiet."_

“Ah, you’re one of _those_ ,” Odd said, with a smile that he probably thought was a knowing one. “Sounds like I’m just what the doctor ordered to lighten you up!” He elbowed Ulrich in the ribs and it took everything within Ulrich to prevent himself from kicking Odd straight in the face by reflex. This was going to be a long year.

“Whatever. Just. What class do you have next? Should be math, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Odd, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and glancing at it. “It’s so weird how you have class on Saturdays, it’s gonna take me a while to get used to that!”

_It’s going to take me a while to get used to you_ , Ulrich thought. “Okay. Well, math is this way. Are you any good at math?” If Odd was smart, at the very least, Ulrich could copy off of him and get his grades up.

“Ew, no, I hate math,” said Odd, crushing what remained of Ulrich’s hope into dust with his weird yellow shoes. “I’m an _artist_.” He said _artist_ with a weird emphasis. Maybe that was how Americans said it. 

“Great,” Ulrich said. “That’s great. Okay, well… okay.” He had no idea what to say.

“What do you do for fun around here?”

“Nothing is fun around here,” Ulrich said. “They don’t even let us have televisions.”

Odd stopped in his tracks and yelled, at the  _top of his lungs,_ “THEY DON’T LET YOU HAVE TELEVISIONS?” Ulrich wanted to melt into the sidewalk. He could feel everyone around staring in their direction. But Ulrich took comfort in the fact that finally, if only for a moment, Odd was finally as upset as Ulrich was.

“Nope. It’s a distraction or something, I don’t know. We can go into the city if we want on weekends. People play sports, I’m on the football team. There’s uh… books, I guess, if you like books. Do you have a computer? They let us have computers in our rooms, but I don’t have one. And there’s a computer lab in the science building, but you get in trouble if they catch you using them for anything fun.”

“I hate sports, I hate books, and I don’t have a computer.” Odd was despondent. “This is _awful_. Just absolutely _heartbreaking_. This has to be illegal or something.”

“Eh, we’re all used to it.” Ulrich shrugged. “Some people have radios.”

“ _Radios_? What is this, the 1920s?” Odd kicked a rock into the grass. He looked as if he might actually start crying. “What an awful year this is going to be.”

_Well,_ Ulrich thought,  _at least we’re in this boat together._

The good news was that, because it was math class next, things were already as bad as they could possibly get. Odd kept staring at Sissi, and he prayed that he would actually get her attention so she would leave him alone, but it wasn’t likely. Odd was too… he was too… well, he wasn’t the kind of guy Sissi liked. The kind of guy Sissi liked, unfortunately, was Ulrich. Plenty of other boys had drooled at her over the years – those two boys who always followed her around did it constantly – but she only had eyes for him, it seemed. And now it seemed like he had  _two_ people always around him who never took hints and never took no for an answer. Why had he been cursed? What had he ever done to anyone?

Still, it was better than being at home,  he supposed.

The hands on the clock seemed to be stuck. Ulrich kept staring at them but they hardly seemed to move. He just wanted the day to be over so he could take his martial arts class and get away from Odd for at least a little bit. Odd certainly didn’t seem like the martial arts type. Of course, neither did Jim, and he was the teacher, but Mrs. Hertz could have been the teacher for all Ulrich cared, he just wanted to get away.

Odd thankfully didn’t seem to be the type to want to constantly talk during class, at least not yet. Math was pretty dull, and it seemed to have the same effect on Odd as it did on Ulrich – making him want to fall asleep. Ulrich’s attention wandered as he struggled to stay awake. Mrs. Meyer was writing some formula on the board. He could hear  Herv é Pichon’s heavy, nasal breathing. Someone was muttering to themselves as they wrote down what Mrs. Meyer was talking about. The clock said 11:42. There was a flock of birds flying outside, beyond the fence. Crows, probably. Jeremie Belpois was aggressively tapping his pencil on his book. Someone walked by the door out in the hallway. It was probably Mrs. Hertz, he could hear her heels tapping on the hallway floor. The clock said 11:43. Belpois kept tapping.  Jean-Baptiste Pujol sneezed. Some of the crows had landed on the fence. The clock said 11:44. Belpois kept tapping. Tapping. Tapping.

“Hey. Belpois,” Ulrich finally whispered. It came out more harshly than he had intended. “Can you, uh, stop that? With the pencil? Please?”

Belpois jumped, looked back at Ulrich, jumped again, and then hurriedly turned back around and lifted his pencil away from his book.

“Sorry,” he whispered back.

“’S cool, thanks,” Ulrich replied. Mrs. Meyer had stopped talking, so Ulrich quickly looked back up at her, afraid she was going to call him out for speaking. Thankfully, she had only stopped to get a new piece of chalk.

A few more times during the class,  Jeremie began tapping his pencil again, only to suddenly stop himself. He clearly wasn’t taking any notes, but he probably didn’t need to. Eventually, just he stuffed his pencil into his bag altogether. He seemed… tense. He was hunched over in his desk, and Ulrich could tell his shoulders were tight. Was he… okay? Ulrich had never known Jeremie to be like this. Normally he was pretty quiet, except for answering teacher’s questions. Or correcting them. Actually, Jeremie could get pretty annoying, but this was a different kind of annoying.

When the bell rang, Ulrich was almost of a mind to ask Jeremie if there was something wrong, but he very quickly left the room. Ulrich couldn’t blame him; classes were over for the week and he liked to get out as quickly as possible as well. Besides, even if Ulrich had really wanted to chase after him, he had probably 40 or 45 kilos (so aking wet) of dead weight attached to him: Odd.

“Alright! Classes are over! Now what?” Odd seemed to have completely forgotten his despondency from earlier. “Do we go on adventures in the city? Do we-”

“ _I_ ,” Ulrich said, raising a hand to cut Odd off, “I am going to go to the gym and get a workout in before my martial arts class tonight. I’d invite you along, but, uh… I mean, you don’t really strike me as the type.” Ulrich offered a smile.

“Ugh. No,” Odd said.

“You’re more than welcome to go check out the city. There’s a Metro stop not _too_ far from here, you can go pretty far, you just need to be back before 7. Boarders aren’t allowed to be out after 7, and that’s when dinner is.”

“Is there a record store nearby? Or maybe, like, a comic book store?”

“It’s Paris,” said Ulrich. “There’s everything you could ever want _and more_.” He made a dramatic show of sweeping his arm across the horizon, as if to gesture _go out and explore. Please. And don’t come back_.

“Alright! I guess I’ll see you later, pal!” Odd ran off in the direction Ulrich had gestured to.

_I’m not your pal_ , Ulrich thought. But for the first time in what felt like forever, he was finally free again. It felt good.

Now that Odd was gone, Ulrich wasn’t actually sure he wanted to go straight to the gym, his class wasn’t until 6. At least he knew he had a place he could go where Odd wouldn’t follow. Hopefully the city would keep Odd entertained for a while, maybe Ulrich could even get a nap in.  Yeah, a nap sounded nice. He didn’t get to take a lot of naps, and would probably get a lot less now that Odd was in the picture.

Ulrich began making his way back to his room. It was actually a pretty nice day, warmer than it had been in a little while. Autumn was on its way, but a little bit of summer had crept back in. There was just a slight breeze, and the sun was bright in the sky. It would actually be a great day for football, but practice wasn’t until tomorrow. Instead of a nap, Ulrich decided to take a quick detour and sit on one of the benches near the park. He was on the edge of campus, and he could see lots of students make their way back to their dorms, or some of them to the cafeteria for lunch. The day students were mostly walking out back into town. Motion at the corner of Ulrich’s vision caught his attention and he looked over to see Jeremie Belpois at the vending machine, pacing around a little bit. He didn’t seem to be ordering anything, just walking around. Against his better judgment, Ulrich found himself getting up and walking over.

“Hey, uh, Belpois,” Ulrich said. Again, Jeremie jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. But, uh, hey, I wanted to ask… um. Is everything… alright? You seem a little… uh. Tense.”

Jeremie stared at Ulrich for a moment. Ulrich could almost see the gears in Jeremie’s robotic brain start to turn as he computed a response. “Oh, uh, yeah,” Jeremie said. “Sorry. Yeah, I guess, I, uh…” He looked down at his feet. “Sorry, sometimes I pace when I think.”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine, yeah, I just wanted to… uh. Check.” There was a silence between the two of them that was almost deafening. Ulrich felt like he wanted to run away.

“Uh. Hey. Stern. I have… a weird question.”

“Um. Okay, shoot,” said Ulrich. He didn’t really want Jeremie to shoot, but he didn’t know how to politely say no to the question.

“Do you know how to pick locks?”

Ulrich blinked. If you had given him ten million years to guess what Jeremie was going to ask him, he still would never had guessed that. “Uh. No. Sorry.”

“Damn. Sorry. Okay, thanks.” He went to turn, but then stopped. “Do you know anybody who does?”

“Uh, nope,” said Ulrich. Did he need to be concerned?

“Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.” Jeremie nodded at Ulrich and walked away, only to stop after a few steps and turn around. “Oh, lunch is _this_ way,” he said. His face was beet red as he walked in the correct direction of the cafeteria.

“Haha, yeah,” Ulrich said, weakly. Today had just been a weird, upsetting roller coaster from start to finish. And it wasn’t even over yet. 


	3. How to Pick Locks

Asking around for lock-pickers was  _definitely_ out, Jeremie decided. He would go to the library tomorrow. Or, actually, he could go today. He could find at least one book on lockpicking before 7, certainly. Then he could just get it out of the way and then… never have to think about any of this ever again, hopefully.

He ate his lunch as quickly as he could manage and made his way off campus before he risked running into Ulrich Stern again. Kadic was in the city of Boulogne-Billancourt, which was big enough in its own right to have most of everything you could need. Jeremie found it lacking in many respects, but his needs weren’t the same as those of normal people. One thing it did have, however, was a local library branch that was close enough that Jeremie didn’t have to take a bus or train. It was a bit of a walk, but he did need to at least get _some_ exercise, and the weather was pretty nice anyway. 

I t was a peaceful walk.  He counted 24 people with iPod earbuds in their ears; it was a habit he had picked up a few years earlier from his father, who had kept calling them “Walkman earphones.” Jeremie didn’t like having music playing constantly because it distracted him, but he was thankful that people who were listening to music were less likely to talk to him. Maybe he could get Ulrich Stern an iPod and then he would never pay attention to Jeremie ever again.

As it happened, he passed by an electronics store on his way to the library, and in the window was a huge poster advertising the  latest version of the iPod – the latest for now, anyway, since they seemed to make a new one every year. He noted the price on the poster. Jeremie would not be giving an iPod to Ulrich Stern or even himself, not at that price. Put a mobile phone in an iPod and  _maybe_ he would pay that  much for a little box that played music.

Next to the electronics store was a record store, which must have surely felt like an insult to the people who ran the record store. Of course it was mostly CDs now, and who knew how long that would last. There were definitely more people in the electronics store than the record store. In fact, there were only two people in the record store that Jeremie could see, besides the very bored looking cashier. There was an old man in the back, and closer to the front was… well, that could only be Odd Della Robbia. And, unfortunately, Odd Della Robbia saw him.

Before Jeremie could turn away and try to cross the street, Odd ran out and said “Hey! You go to Kadic, right? I saw you this morning!”

“Uh, yeah,” said Jeremie, forcing himself to smile. He didn’t know if he could handle two awkward interactions in one day. “I’m Jeremie Belpois. And you’re… Odd.”

“Yep! Odd Della Robbia, at your service!” He even made a little show of bowing. Jeremie almost wished he were running into Ulrich Stern instead. Actually, weren’t they roommates now? Jeremie felt sorry for Ulrich. “Really cool record store they have here, you ever go in there?”

“Um, no, I haven’t,” Jeremie said. “But that’s, um, cool.”

“So what do you do for fun around here? Ulrich seems like a total jock who has never had fun in his life.”

Jeremie laughed so hard and so suddenly that he snorted. In fact, he couldn’t stop laughing. He laughed for what felt like forever, even though people were staring at him. It felt good to laugh, somehow. He was probably also laughing at himself and at his predicament  and just… everything about his life at the moment . It helped to release some steam. He really must have been on edge. “Oh, I needed that. Yes, I think that’s a pretty accurate assessment of Ulrich Stern.”

Odd was laughing too. “It’s good to see not  _everyone_ here is such a stick in the mud!”

Jeremie blinked at Odd. Whatever he had just said seemed like a strange saying. Hadn’t Odd said he was from America? Maybe the translation didn’t carry over correctly, but whatever it was that Odd had said, it… sounded nice?

“Uh, to answer your question… I’m not so sure I’m an expert on fun things, I mainly…” He stopped to look for the right word. “Well, I’m kind of a nerd, I guess. I was on the way to the library.”

Odd made a face. “Books. Everyone here and their  _books_ . Ulrich told me you aren’t allowed to have TVs at Kadic? What’s up with  _that_ ?”

“Mr. Delmas doesn’t like television. He only barely tolerates computers,” said Jeremie. “I don’t watch television, but I know other people can’t stand the rule. I think some people have some hidden in their rooms?”

“Oh! People hide stuff in their rooms a lot, then?” Odd seemed excited all of a sudden.

“Um. Probably, I guess? I don’t know.”

“Do you know anyone who hides, like… like a pet, maybe?”

Jeremie’s eyes widened. “Oh no, definitely not. Animals are strictly forbidden, and Jim does room checks all the time. A little TV you can hide in the closet, but an animal? Highly unlikely.”

“Oh. I see,” said Odd. Now he seemed deflated. “Who’s Jim? Is that the principal? I forgot his name.”

“No, Jim is the P.E. teacher, and he’s also the person, like… in charge of keeping order in the dormitories, I guess. Jim does a lot of things. Mr. Delmas is the headmaster, he’s the guy with the beard and the glasses.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’ve met Jim,” said Odd.

“You would know if you had. Trust me.” They were quiet for a moment, and Jeremie began to step slowly backwards. “Well, good to see you, I’m gonna g-”

“Hey, I may as well check out the library while I’m here, right? Mind if I come with?”

“Oh, uh, no, not at all, that’s fine,” said Jeremie. It probably wasn’t fine, but he didn’t really know how to politely tell Odd no. Besides, it was pretty close. “It’s just across the street and around the corner.”

T hey crossed the street, and Jeremie felt very strange to have someone following him. He noted, however, that he was about the same height as Odd, which was saying something, because Jeremie was a year younger than him, and Odd was wearing some kind of platform shoes or something. In fact, Jeremie had spent more time talking to other people today than he had in a very long time. It was kind of exhausting, actually.

The library was normally something of a getaway for Jeremie. There were more books here than at Kadic by probably a factor of ten, and much easier access to the internet. Kadic had set up various restrictions on its network, and while Jeremie was perfectly capable of circumventing them, sometimes it was nice to not need to.  The internet was faster here, too, which was definitely helpful.

It occurred to him, all of a sudden, if he might just run an internet search for “how to pick locks.” But that was probably as unwise to do at a public library as it would be to do at Kadic, and he never knew how well he could trust things he found on places like Google. The truth was, as much as he loved computers – and he did – sometimes he just preferred the knowledge he could get from printed, physical books.

“Do you think they have comic books here?” Odd asked.

“I’m, uh, not sure,” Jeremie said. He had never read a comic book even once in his life. “If they do, I think they’d be on the second floor, west side, toward the back.” Even if he had never been there, he knew how the Dewey decimal system worked. Jeremie was actually less sure of where books about lockpicking would be. He highly doubted there was a book entitled _How to Pick Locks,_ and if there was, he would probably be too embarrassed to check it out. Perhaps there were books on famous criminals or something, or maybe he could look at books about lock- _smithing_. 

I t did not take long for him to find several books that seemed interesting. It did, however, take quite a while for him to realize that none of them were what he needed. One about the history of lock-smithing was fascinating, but useless. A technical manual from a company that manufactured mechanical doors showed engineering promise, but nothing about how to open their locks.  _Crime in 19_ _th_ _Century Paris_ was actually rather dry, which was disappointing. In desperation, he had even actually searched for  _How to Pick Locks_ in the catalog. Nothing.

“How the hell does anyone learn how to pick a damn lock?” Jeremie muttered to himself in the stacks, staring at a book entitled _Medieval Smithing Techniques_ and wondering if it was worth it.

“My sister Adele taught me,” answered Odd Della Robbia plainly.

Jeremie screamed and jumped so quickly he caught his legs on a stool and fell over. “How long have you been here?”

Odd, grinning from ear to ear, held out an arm to help Jeremie up. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he said. “I knew you would do that.”

Jeremie accepted the assistance getting up. His glasses had come off of one ear, and he adjusted them while his face burned. “ Thanks,” said Jeremie, half-genuinely for the help getting up, and half-sarcastically for scaring him in the first place.

“What are you looking at lock-picking for, hmmm?” Odd was still grinning. “Have a room you want to break into?”

Jeremie laughed, in spite of himself. What did he have to lose at this point, with all possible dignity he might have once held erased? He looked Odd Della Robbia straight in the eyes. “Depends,” he said. “Can you keep a secret?”


	4. A Beaver in Quebec

There was a dog on Ulrich’s bed.

Ulrich had opened his bedroom door, looked at the dog, blinked, walked out of the bedroom, and then walked back in to confirm that yes, there was, in fact, a dog on Ulrich’s bed.

It was the ugliest dog Ulrich had ever seen, bar none. Just a hideous, inbred mongrel of a thing. It had one of those long, sort of egg-shaped faces with beady little eyes, it had stubby little legs, and it was yapping in the most annoying, high-pitched tone he had ever heard.

Oh, it had also torn through all of his clothes, bitten half his shoes, and peed on his bed.

“I’m not dealing with this right now,” Ulrich declared. He grabbed his gym bag – thankfully, already packed and zipped shut – and walked right back out of the room. He had half a mind to turn the damn thing in, but he really didn’t want to think about the dog, or Odd, at all. He was going to go to the gym, and have a good workout, and then take his martial arts class. He would have a good afternoon, and then he would broach the… other issues. That he was not thinking about right now.

The gym at Kadic wasn’t really a gym. It was a “workout room,” and not exactly as well-equipped as one might expect for a school that cost as much as it did. Kadic wasn’t really an athletic powerhouse, it was really more of a math-and-science-type school. Which was fine, because that just meant there were fewer people using the gym.

Of course, it also made any attempt at academic success next to impossible for Ulrich. But, you know. Trade-offs. Or something.

The workout room was empty, as usual. Every now and again he would see someone else in here, usually an older student, but that was rare. There were few enough people at Kadic who care d enough about fitness to use the gym outside of P.E. class that they could all manage to avoid each other if they each kept to their own schedule. 

I t was a treadmill day, Ulrich decided. Usually he hated running, but it felt like a good way to burn off frustration. Against his better judgment, he cranked up the speed right as he got on instead of warming up first. If he ran fast enough, he could run away from Odd Della Robbia and his stupid dog and his terrible grades and his terrible life. 

It felt good, after a while. His feet rhythmically hitting the treadmill, his chest moving in and out, the sound of his breath in his ears. He actually did forget about everything for a while. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how long of a while it was. He just ran. 

All Ulrich wanted was peace. That was all. He didn’t ask for much, he thought. He wasn’t asking for special treatment,  or fame and fortune,  or even easier classes, just... peace.  Just the ability to breathe and relax for once. No one pulling him in directions he didn’t want to go. No one yelling at him. No one telling jokes he had to pretend to laugh at. He didn’t know why it had to be so hard. He didn’t know how he could be  500 kilometers from home and still feel so constricted all the time. 

There were always expectations, always demands, and none of them seemed to ever be for things that Ulrich was actually good at. It wasn’t like his father thought it was cool that he was so skilled at pencak silat. His father probably couldn’t even spell it. And his father almost certainly couldn’t do any of his math assignments, but he still found every chance to yell at Ulrich about them as he could.

He was practically stomping on the treadmill, Ulrich realized. He turned the speed dial down a few notches and refocused on breathing. He was being stereotypical, he said to himself,  by g etting all worked up about his parents. Everybody who went to a boarding school had problems with their parents, but no one else stomped around on the treadmill.

Almost thankfully, someone else came into the gym. Christophe, his name was, Ulrich was pretty sure. A year or so ahead of him. He seemed content to lift free-weights and listen to music with his headphones, so Ulrich didn’t have to make small talk, but at least the risk of someone else seeing him helped regulate his moody behavior. He kept running, though. As fast as he could.

He enjoyed the peace he could get for as long as he could make it last, but eventually his watch beeped at him. It was half past five, and he had class soon. Perhaps it had been foolish to run so much before a martial arts class that would almost certainly be just as physical, but at least for the moment, Ulrich felt good. A shower felt even better, and he allowed himself to take more time than he did in the mornings. There wasn’t a line, after all. 

The martial arts class was in the other gym, which was to say, in the P.E. room and basketball court rather than the workout room. The only other person in the room was Jim. He hadn’t expected a whole  _lot_ of people, but… only Jim?

“Thank you all for coming,” Jim said, apparently either ignoring or unprepared for the fact that there was only one student present. “It’s great to see all of you here tonight.” Jim was, without a doubt, the weirdest person Ulrich knew, and that included his new roommate. He proceeded to run through a list of several different martial arts from around the world, all pronounced poorly and none of them the name of the actual art Jim was teaching, and then – rather questionably – said “No, none of these are menu items at the Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant.” He paused, and then said “No offense, Ms. Ishiyama.”

Ulrich turned to see someone else approaching. He had seen her before, although she was a year ahead of him,  and he didn’t remember her name.

“None taken, sir,” she said, her voice absolutely dripping in sarcasm. “I’m Japanese.”

“Uh, yeah. Right,” said Jim, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Whatever. Anyway, these aren’t food, these are all the names of martial arts techniques that could save your life!”

Jim was still talking, but Ulrich was still looking at Ishiyama. She was… well, she was striking. She was tall, she was obviously strong, and she clearly wasn’t one to let anyone walk all over her, least of all Jim. His heart was beating quickly, he realized. But it was just from the treadmill. Obviously.

“...saved my life when I was a forest ranger in Quebec!” Jim finished.

Ulrich blinked. Clearly he had missed something. “Really? What happened?”

He immediately regretted asking. Jim, apparently just dying for someone to ask, dove right into a story about being attacked by… a  _beaver_ ? “It was going right for my jugular!” Jim made a show of miming an imaginary beaver lunging at his neck. “I would have been done for had I not  _perfectly_ mastered the technique of-” Jim said some name that Ulrich had never heard of, and even if Jim wasn’t making it up, he was definitely pronouncing it wrong.

There was a beat of silence in the room, and then Ulrich and Ishiyama burst into laughter. Both of them practically fell over, and Ulrich could feel the heat radiating off Jim’s face. “What’s so funny about that?” Jim finally asked.

“I, uh, I think, next time…” Ulrich sat back up and wiped a tear from his eye. “You might be better off just… _not_ talking about it.”

“Hmph,” Jim said. “Well, whatever. Everybody get into groups of two.” There were clearly only two students in the room. Why was Jim like this? How had he been a teacher here for… however long it had been? Whatever was going on with Jim, Ulrich would obviously never understand. But at least the entertainment factor was worth it.

Whatever-her-name-was Ishiyama was pretty damn good, it turned out. Ulrich had been studying pencak silat for a few years, and given that it wasn’t exactly a mainstream martial art, he felt like if Ishiyama had been too, he would have seen her somewhere. She was obviously a beginner, but she had great form, good balance, and she had a lot of power behind her strikes. Jim only had them doing basic moves, but he could tell already. His heart was beating fast again.

“You’re pretty good,” Ulrich said. Wait, he had _said_ that. Out loud. With his mouth. That was awkward. “For a _beginner_ ,” he quickly added. 

Her mouth flattened into a straight line, and her eyebrow arched for just a moment. In fact, it was a miracle Ulrich had been able to notice even that, because less than a second later, Ulrich had been kicked flat on his back. Right in the chest. It had knocked the wind out of him, even. Ulrich could count on one hand the number of times that had ever happened to him, and none of them were at school. He wasn’t really thinking much about that, though, because in the process of kicking him down, Ishiyama had fallen on top of him.

There was no avoiding the fact that she was beautiful. It was suddenly very obvious, and it was all that Ulrich could notice. The very fact that she had just almost literally kicked his ass only made her more beautiful.  He could feel his face burning, and he could feel his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. He wanted to melt into the floor and never be seen again, but he also wanted this moment to last forever. It was paralyzing. It was incredible.

“Alright,” Jim said very loudly. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”

Ishiyama got up almost immediately. Ulrich took a few moments. There was a ringing in his ears, Ulrich noticed. Or something that felt like one. It was hard for him to think, and even harder for him to move. She was just… wow. Wow. He had never… liked being so close to someone before. It was electrifying. Ulrich Stern didn’t know a whole lot, but one thing he did know was that he wanted to spend more time with her.

“Bow to each other, and then go get some beauty sleep,” Jim said. He himself was already leaving. Ishiyama bowed gracefully, but Ulrich couldn’t move. He just stared. And then, in a sense of panic, his legs kicked in and he turned and walked away.

“Hmph,” said Ishiyama. “Nice to meet you, too.”

In an even further sense of panic, Ulrich found himself yelling. “Wait!” He said. His legs – by some miracle – actually complied when he willed them to turn around.

She stopped. Ulrich realized that he had not actually planned on what to say. He could feel his heart beating in his chest again, but it was harsher. Like what a heart attack felt like, he imagined. “Uh.” His brain was empty. Just completely gone. He was functioning on some kind of hormonal teenage autopilot, and it was absolutely failing him. This was the worst moment of his entire life. Even worse than the thing earlier with Belpois.

“Do you know how to pick locks?” Ulrich found himself saying. The words fell out of his mouth, and when each one reached his ears, Ulrich felt like he was getting shot.

She blinked. “Yes?” She said. She looked over for a moment at the door behind Ulrich, which Jim had just left out of. “Uh, why?”

“I… uh. Someone I know was… asking around earlier.” Words kept coming out of Ulrich’s mouth even though he desperately wanted to stop saying them.

“So you’re just… asking everyone you meet?”

“Uh, yeah!” Ulrich’s voice croaked. “It seemed… important. To him. I guess.” There was a moment of silence. “I’m Ulrich.”

“I’m… Yumi,” she said, looking him up and down. “You didn’t hit your head or anything, did you?”

“I’m not sure,” Ulrich said. If he dropped dead at this exact moment, he would not be upset. He was almost looking forward to dealing with that dog in his room.

The dog in his room. Suddenly, perhaps just out of pure rage, Ulrich snapped back into reality. No, actually, he did  _not_ want to deal with the dog in his room.  _But_ , he thought, there might be a way out here. Jeremie Belpois, as Ulrich recalled, was the only other boy in their class not to have a roommate. They had asked at the beginning of the year if they would room together, but Jeremie had given some excuse about insomnia or something and they had believed him because he was the star pupil or whatever. But  _maybe_ if Ulrich did a favor for him – namely, getting someone to pick whatever lock he needed picked –  _maybe_ Jeremie would very nicely go to Mr. Delmas and say he had gotten over whatever the problem was and say that actually, he would very much like a roommate now. Hell, Ulrich would even let Odd keep the room and move in with Jeremie himself if he had to. He would do anything.  _Anything._

“Do you know Jeremie Belpois?” Ulrich asked.

Yumi blinked. “The name sounds familiar… is he the whiz kid who skipped a grade?”

“Yeah,” said Ulrich. “He needs a lock picked.”

“Oh, uh, okay, I guess I can talk to him…”

“Great! That’s just great!” Ulrich was grinning now. This was going to be perfect. “I know where is room is, we can go there right now.”

“I was going to go back to my house…”

“It won’t take long! I bet he just… I dunno, wants to get into Mrs. Hertz’s storage closet or something. Easy peasy.”

Yumi stared at him for what felt like a while. “Sure,” she eventually said. “It’s not like I had anything else to do tonight.” She smiled. “I don’t know what’s up with you, but this feels like an adventure.”

Ulrich sincerely hoped not. He just wanted some peace and quiet.


	5. Just Some Closet

“And you _promise_ you won’t tell anyone?” Jeremie pointed an admonishing finger right in Odd’s face. Odd crossed his eyes to stare at it.

“I promise! I already said I promise!” Odd held his arms up in surrender. “It’s just some closet, right?”

“Yeah,” Jeremie said. But he really hoped it wasn’t. “Okay, this way. But we have to be careful, not too much longer and Jim will start lurking around.”

It hadn’t been difficult to get Odd to agree to the plan. In fact, he already had what he needed in his bag, which appeared to be a screwdriver and several hair pins. In fact, all of a sudden, everything was easier than he could have ever imagined. It was really happening! This was it!

The sun had set, and it occurred to Jeremie that he had really become used to skulking around in the dark. He knew which way to walk to keep in the shadows or out of the line of sight from most of the more highly-trafficked areas on campus. Odd didn’t miss a beat in following him. He was probably used to this too.

Was… was Jeremie becoming a  _delinquent?_ What would his father think of all this? What would happen if he got caught?

No.  He couldn’t think of any of that. All of this was just… risk mitigation.  Picking one lock now meant that he wouldn’t be committing a felony later. And, statistically speaking, it almost certainly would really only be a closet, and then he could put his mind at ease and just order a robotics kit from a magazine or something, like a normal person. It was probably just the room where they kept caustic cleaning chemicals or the water shut-off valve. It was a win-win-win. Either way, Jeremie would be able to put all of this to bed. He just had to open the door.

They were creeping near the gymnasium when motion in the corner of his eye caught Jeremie’s attention. He froze instinctively, but the motion did not stop. He forced his head to turn and see Ulrich Stern and the girl from the cafeteria in the morning. “Hey! Belpois!” Ulrich waved his arm. Jeremie winced. Yeah, Stern, just go ahead and shout. Great idea. “I found someone who can pick your lock!”

Jeremie’s first thought was _I knew it!_ Of course she knew how to pick a lock. There was just no way she couldn’t. His second thought was that it felt immensely ironic to go from being desperately in need to having _too many_ lock-pickers.

“I, uh, actually, found someone too.” Jeremie motioned towards Odd.

“Oh. Hey, Odd,” said Ulrich.

“Ulrich! Hey buddy! We’re just going to commit some light crime, wanna come with?”

Jeremie’s mouth flattened. He hadn’t intended to invite anyone anywhere. He really, really did feel sorry for Ulrich.

“This is the absolute weirdest thing I have ever been involved with in my life,” said the girl. What was her name? “But at this point, I guess I just have to see it to its conclusion, right?” She looked around. “I’m Yumi.”

“Jeremie Belpois,” said Jeremie instinctively.

“Odd Della Robbia. I’m new.”

“I’m… Ulrich,” said Ulrich, somewhat lamely. “I guess you... all probably knew that.”

“Okay, great, we’re all introduced. Let’s go get it over with, then. Boiler room is this way.” Jeremie sighed. It was a lot harder to sneak around with four people then it was with two, although Yumi seemed pretty adept for her size. The good news was that it wasn’t far, and there wasn’t anyone around. Everyone else was at dinner.

The boiler room felt small with four people in it. It was kind of a narrow room, or at least the part that didn’t contain the giant boiler was narrow. There were only two doors in the boiler room, one leading out back to the rest of the school, and the closet door. Both doors were completely unremarkable, but only one of them haunted Jeremie the way the one in back did. “There,” he said. “That’s the one.”

Both Yumi and Odd approached the door, with Odd pulling the hair pins out of his pocket. Yumi stepped back, rummaging through her own pockets. “Oh, wow,” said Odd. “This is going to be a tough one, I can already tell.” Meanwhile, unsatisfied with her pockets, Yumi had shrugged off her bag – it looked like she had just left the gym – and looked through that as well.

“Hm,” Odd said. “Hmmmmmmm.” His tongue was sticking out, and there appeared to be beads of sweat on his brow. He had stuck two pins in the lock and was jiggling them around in a manner that, at least to Jeremie, appeared completely random. At one point he tossed the pins aside and pulled out two other ones. “That’s better… that’s better,” he muttered. “Almost… almost… yeah!” Odd leapt away from the door with a flourish. “And here we go!” He placed his hand on the knob and turned.

The door was still locked.

“Oh. Well, shit,” said Odd.

“Wait. I have something I can try,” said Yumi, looking up from her bag.

“Why do you keep lock-picking tools in your gym bag?” Ulrich asked.

Yumi laughed. “I don’t,” she said, and then proceeded to kick the door in.

The room was completely silent for what felt like forever. Each one of the boys had slacked jaws. Ulrich appeared to be blushing.

“Well? Are you gonna look in there or not, Belpois?” Yumi was grinning.

The door had come off one of its hinges, and was leaning awkwardly. There was the smell of dust and splintered wood in the air. Jeremie, as delicately as possible, moved the door aside to reveal the room behind it.

It was a closet.

A dark, dusty closet.

It was maybe half a meter deep, with a raw brick wall and exactly one wooden shelf that was partially rotted. On the shelf, there was a single broken light bulb and a rectangular metal can whose  faded label said had once contained leaded gasoline . On the floor of the closet was the broken wooden shaft from some sort of tool, like a broom or a mop.

“Well, this was fun, but I need to go home now,” Yumi said. “Also, my foot hurts like a bitch.”

“This… this can’t… this can’t possibly… why would they lock this?” Jeremie had to stop himself from falling to his knees. “This is just a useless broken mop!” He placed his hands on the wall as if it was a hologram and he could just pass through the illusion. “Why would they lock this?”

“Hey, that’s broken glass up there, it’s dangerous.” Ulrich was smirking. 

“What a bummer,” Odd said. “I was excited.”

Jeremie stood on his tip-toes to look at the shelf. Perhaps there was a key or something interesting, something to justify all of this. There was nothing except dust. There wasn’t even anything he could make a robot with, except perhaps the stupid metal can. “Well,” he sighed, “I might as well take this. I might be able to do something with it.” The others were already leaving as he picked up the can.

It rattled.

Jeremie shook it and it rattled again.

“Hey! There’s something in here!”

“What? What’s the can?” Jeremie hadn’t expected Ulrich to be the first one to turn back.

“Well it says gasoline, but it’s obviously not.” He looked at the can and it appeared sealed, except for a metal spout. He tried to look through it, but it was too dark. “There’s something in here… and it feels too big to have fit through that little spout.”

Ulrich took the can and shook it a few times for good measure. “Yeah. Weird.” He turned it over in his hands but shook his head. “How’d they get it in there?”

“Oh my god,” said Yumi. “You kids are going to go insane looking for mysteries. Just give me the stupid thing.” She snatched the can from Ulrich’s hands before he could offer it to her, and pulled a pocket knife from her pocket. “I don’t know what it is or how it got in there, but I’m getting it out, and then you’re going to bed, all of you.”

“It’s like 7:15,” Odd said.

“Shh,” Yumi said. She was literally cutting the can open with something on her pocket knife. An old fashioned can opener, it seemed. Sometimes it was low-tech solutions that worked best. “Here,” said Yumi, carefully reaching through the hole and pulling something out. “It’s a… what the hell?”

“That is a 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disk,” Jeremie said. The sound of static had returned to his ears, but it was different kind of static than boredom. It was excitement.

“Why would there be a floppy disk in a can of gasoline?” Ulrich tried to take the disk from Yumi’s hand, but Jeremie grabbed it first.

“This isn’t possible,” Jeremie said.

“Yeah, how’d they get that in there? Weird,” said Odd.

“No,” said Jeremie, forcefully. Everyone in the room jumped. “I mean literally. This literally isn’t possible.”

“What do you mean?” Ulrich stepped back, just a tiny bit, from Jeremie.

“That can was completely, entirely sealed. It’s made of metal. It would take extraordinary effort to somehow cut open and then reseal it without any external evidence. That means that the only point in which that floppy disk could have been inserted was when it was manufactured.”

“Okay, so that’s difficult, but not imp-”

Jeremie raised a hand to silence Yumi before she finished. “Five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks were not commercially introduced until 1976,” Jeremie said, still speaking in that eerily flat, numb tone of voice. “And that can says  _Product of French Algeria_ .”

You could have heard a pin drop in the boiler room. You didn’t need to know what year Algeria gained independence to know that it was very clearly before 1976. Long before 1976. 

“I suppose, Yumi,” Jeremie finally said, “you are technically correct. It _is_ possible that this could be some kind of trick. The can’s label could be a forgery, or someone could have gone through the work to conceal evidence of it being opened and resealed. But it is extraordinarily unlikely, and in either case… I have to imagine all of us want to know what is on this floppy disk.”

“Yes,” Ulrich said simply.

“The computer lab at school doesn’t have anything that can read that disk, but before we leave here… I don’t think I’m done with this closet. Because if you have a secret, special key that unlocks only _one_ thing that you _never_ use, but you absolutely cannot ever lose it and always need to know where it is, where would you put it?” Jeremie got down on his hands and knees and looked closely at the brick wall in the back of the closet. “If you’re stupid… you put it right by the thing it unlocks.”

Odd and Yumi both pulled out their mobile phones in a largely futile attempt to provide Jeremie light, but he didn’t need it. His brain was working a kilometer a minute, considering every possibility and looking at every angle. He found what he was looking for in no time at all – in one back corner of the closet, one you couldn’t see from outside the door, his fingers felt an unnatural groove in the grout between the bricks. It was preposterous, really. The only security was the hope that someone would not actually look. It was like they had wanted him to find it. He took the disk and slid it in the slot. It was the right way the first time.

The door to the rest of the school slammed shut, and something creaked. Something old and in need of oil. Slowly, the brick wall began to move – it opened, like a door, away from the group of children that stared at it with gaping jaws.  The wall opened to reveal, just behind it, another set of doors – but these were gleaming metal. They were also instantly recognizable: it was an elevator. On the wall just before the elevator door was a panel with only one button. The button pointed down.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I’m not going to get to have dinner tonight, am I?” Odd asked.

“No,” said everyone else in unison. But they were all walking towards the elevator.


End file.
